










HOBART 

j 






THE STORY OF A 






HUNDRED YEARS 






1822-1922 










Book 418: 



PRESENT!-;!) BY 



HOBART 

THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



32I5M 
72ISM 



HOBART 

THE STORY OF A 
HUNDRED YEARS 

1822-1922 



BY 

MILTON HAIGHT TURK 



GENEVA, NEW YORK 

Published bt Hobabt College 
At the Pbess of W. F. Humphrey '82 

1921 



&< 



1^ 



First printing March, 1921 
Second printing July, 1921 






SEP 22 !8f| 



TO HER LOYAL SONS 

CHARLES DELAMATER VAIL '59 

AND 

BEVERLY CHEW '69 

THEIR COLLEGE DEDICATES 

THIS LITTLE STORY OF HER LIFE 

WHICH HAS BEEN MADE HAPPY BY THEIR LOVE 

AND SUCH AS THEIRS 



PREFACE 

The present sketch of Hobart College in its 
first century was prepared at the request of the 
Centennial Committee and with the active 
assistance of its members. It is hoped that a 
more comprehensive history of the College, with 
appendices including all important documents, 
may be forthcoming in time for the Centennial 
Celebration; of such an account this may be 
submitted as a partial draft. 

The writer desires to record his obligation to 
Mr. George M. B. Hawley '92, who most gener- 
ously and at cost of no small labor has contrib- 
uted to this little work from his extraordinary 
store of information concerning the past of 
Geneva and Hobart. 



CONTENTS 

I Geneva Academy Becomes a College - - - 9 

II The Church and the College 15 

III The English Course 22 

IV Little Old Men of the Sea - - - - - - - 27 

V A Chronicle of Trustees 30 

VI The First Half-Century, 1822-1872 - - - - 38 

VII The Second Half-Century, 1872-1922 - - - 45 



HOBART 

The Story of a Hundred Years 
1822—1922 

I. Geneva Academy Becomes a College 

The establishment of Hobart College one 
hundred years ago was due to the same con- 
siderations which had brought 
about the much earlier foundations Education 
on the Atlantic seaboard. Nor in the 
were the conditions surrounding it Wilderness 
very different. At the close of the 
Revolution the Genesee Country, as it was 
called, was a wilderness. When civilization 
came in, it entered by way of Geneva, the "gate- 
way" to the Genesee Country. "Here we pro- 
pose building the city," wrote Phelps in 1788, 
"as there is water carriage from here to Schenec- 
tady, with only two carrying places." For 
many years Geneva had a distinctly command- 
ing position. In 1822, when the story of the 
College opens, Rochesterville was an infant 
village, albeit a very sturdy infant; Geneva had 

(9) 



10 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

already reached the dignity of over 1700 inhabi- 
tants, 250 dwellings, two printing presses, a 
bank, a land office and so on. 

There was work, and plenty of it, for the 
missionaries of religion and of education. The 
Genesee country was rich and it developed 
with startling rapidity. For such work Geneva 
was an important radial point. The first 
Presbyterian synod for this district was the 
Synod of Geneva; the first Episcopal mission- 
ary in this region, Davenport Phelps, had his 
headquarters at Geneva,, where in 1806 he 
founded Trinity Church. 

In the great work before them religion and 
education kept step, as they have so often 

done. Geneva Academy was in 
Geneva operation apparently before 1800; 

Academy a charter was asked for it in 1807, 

and secured in 1813. In its earlier 
years the dominant influence in the Academy 
seems to have been Presbyterian; later on 
apparently members of the Episcopal Church 
were in control. In any case, when the ques- 
tion of raising the Academy to a college came 
up, it was naturally Churchmen who raised 
it. Hamilton College was already in existence 
and was making many just demands upon 
the loyalty of the Presbyterian Church, which 
had established it. 



GENEVA ACADEMY BECOMES A COLLEGE 11 

In 1813, through the efforts of that stout- 
hearted missionary, Amos Baldwin of Utica, an 
annuity of $750 had been granted by Trinity 
Church, New York, to Fairfield Academy to 
secure theological instruction there. In 1821, 
when Geneva Academy had been for several 
years suspended, this annuity, at the instance of 
Bishop Hobart, was transferred to Geneva Acad- 
emy; and with it were transferred also the 
Reverend Daniel McDonald, Principal of Fair- 
field, several students, and a collection 
of books. As a condition of the transfer a 
lot was chosen by Bishop Hobart on Main 
Street, and funds were secured by local public 
subscription with which a stone building was 
put up on that lot. This building — Geneva 
Hall — was finished and ready for the combined 
academy and theological school in 1822. 

From the beginning, however, the object 
had been a college. The transfer of funds 
from Fairfield was made, as the 
subscription paper for the build- The Object 
ing of Geneva Hall stated, "with a College 
the intent to use all practicable 
means to raise the academy to the highly 
useful station of a college." Before the com- 
pletion of the building the Principal of the 
Academy and the Rector of Trinity Church, 
Geneva, join in urging upon Bishop Hobart 



12 H0BART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

that this plan, advocated by him as early as 
1818, be carried out forthwith. "Such is the 
charm of a diploma to a youth," they aver, 
"that he will ever prefer a college to an academy. 
. . . A diploma, like an oath in disputes, 
cuts off all controversy, and the possessor is 
admitted by the world as competent, without 
further examination." 

A petition for a college charter was addressed 
to the Regents of the University of the State 

of New York on January 22, 
College Charter 1822; on April 10, 1822, a pro- 
April 10, 1822 visional charter was granted. 

Collegiate work was already a 
part of the routine of the combined theological 
school and academy, and it was not difficult, 
with Geneva Hall ready for occupancy, to begin 
in 1822 the preparation of young men for the 
receipt of the degree which the officers expected 
to be able to grant. Full corporate powers were 
still to be secured, but the existence of Geneva 
College as an institution dates from this year. 

The Regents required the accumulation of 
funds yielding $4000 a year before a permanent 
charter should issue, and allowed three years 
for that enterprise. It was no small undertak- 
ing. "I am afraid this will be a difficulty 
with you," wrote Bishop Hobart. "Means, 
however, must be devised for surmounting it." 



GENEVA ACADEMY BECOMES A COLLEGE 13 

The theological school was after a time dis- 
continued, and some $20,000 secured directly 
to the College from the Protestant Episcopal 
Society for Promoting Religion and Learning 
in the State of New York. Before this matter, 
in which Bishop Hobart was no doubt active, 
was formally concluded, he fell ill and was 
obliged — in September 1823 — to give up work 
and go abroad. He did not return until after 
the granting of the permanent charter. 

The Startin fund of $5000, the legacy of 
Mrs. Sarah Startin of New York, was also 
turned over to the College by the 
Bishop, and there was a very small Permanent 
Academy endowment. But these Charter 
funds all together yielded less than 
half the necessary amount; nearly $35,000 had 
still to be raised. Geneva Hall had already been 
provided by Genevans mainly. It was now 
necessary to make a strenuous campaign through- 
out the western counties, a campaign which 
appealed to all good citizens to secure for the 
Genesee country a valuable educational founda- 
tion. Some help was received, of course, especi- 
ally from members of the Episcopal Church, in 
New York City and other eastern towns, but the 
list of subscriptions by counties shows that the 
contributions came very largely from those who 
might expect to benefit most directly by the es- 



14 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

tablishment of the new institution. The desired 
sum was obtained within the time set, and on 
February 8, 1825, the permanent charter was 
granted. 



II. The Church and the College 

What was the relation of the new institution 
to the Protestant Episcopal Church, and how 
was that relation maintained? This much 
debated question is a matter of history, and can 
be answered only by a dispassionate recital of 
the facts. The College, as we have seen, had 
been established by a fundamental majority of 
Churchmen and an indispensable minority of 
non-churchmen. As President Hale wrote in 
1848, "it was a part of the Church's mission in 
the West;" it was also a part of the mission of 
education in the West. Did it fulfil its obliga- 
tions? 

In the first place, there is no evidence that 
Bishop Hobart or the Protestant Episcopal 
Society for Promoting Religion and 
Learning, who had both endowed Religious 
the College, expected any organic Liberty a 
connection with the Episcopal Fundamental 
Church. In 1818 Bishop Hobart Principle 
made his plans to enlarge the 
Academy Board by the addition of Episcopa- 
lians; in 1821 in his Convention address he 
spoke of the college as one "in which there will be 
no influence unfriendly to the Church." The 
new Board, as named in the Charter, fully 

(15) 



16 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

answered these expectations, for it contained a 
decisive majority of Churchmen. On the other 
hand, Bishop Hobart was himself not a member 
of the Board, the laymen greatly exceeded the 
clergy, the Board was made up largely of 
Genevans, and several denominations were 
represented in its membership. Furthermore, 
the Charter contained —and it still contains — 
the very unequivocal provision that no "ordi- 
nance, rule or order" of the Board shall "extend 
to exclude any person of any religious denomina- 
tion whatever from equal liberty and advantage 
of education, or from any of the degrees, liber- 
ties, privileges, benefits or immunities of said 
College, on account of his particular tenets in 
religion." The charter did not, like that of 
Columbia College, require the president to be a 
member of the Episcopal Church; indeed, like 
the public appeals which had preceded it, it did 
not mention any church. 

The clause just quoted was the only restrictive 
provision of the Charter of Geneva College; 

beyond that the Trustees were 
Broad unfettered and could make of the 

Educational new institution what they would. 
Policy At their first meeting in 1825 they 

at once established, along with the 
usual Classical course, a non-classical or English 
course, the first of its kind. This new curricu- 



THE CHURCH AND THE COLLEGE 17 

lum was obviously intended for the business 
men, farmers and engineers of the new country; 
it showed the fixed purpose of the Trustees to 
make the institution useful to the whole district 
and not merely a training school for the Church. 
When the question of the presidency came 
up, however, the majority stood for the selection 
of a clergyman, who was sure to 
be an Episcopal clergyman. Since The First 
at this time, and long afterward, President 
practically all college presidents 
were clergymen, a different outcome could not 
be expected. The first president, Jasper Adams, 
was drawn from the educational field, having 
been president of Charleston College. The 
decision in favor of a clerical head cost the new 
college the support of a few trustees; others, 
however, who like these were not members of the 
Episcopal Church, remained its faithful sup- 
porters as long as they lived. 

The relation between the College and the 
Church was formally recognized in the official 
report of the Diocese of New York 
to the General Convention of the The Diocese 
Protestant Episcopal Church which and the Col- 
met in Philadelphia in November lege in 1826 
1826. Doubtless the words were 
those of Bishop Hobart, who had visited Geneva 
a few weeks before; never at all events has the 



18 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

ecclesiastical situation of the College —as it was 
and is —been more precisely set forth : it seems 
advisable to quote the entire reference. 

"It was mentioned in the last report of this 
Diocese, that there was a prospect of having a 
College established at Geneva, in the County of 
Ontario, principally under the direction of the 
members of our Church. The measure has 
since been carried into effect. And while, at 
Geneva College, no peculiar privileges are 
enjoyed by Episcopal students over others, and 
every measure unfavorable to the fullest tolera- 
tion of all religious sentiments, or tending to a 
system of proselytism, is most scrupulously 
avoided, the youth of our own Church are 
exposed to no inducements to forsake her, but 
have every facility of becoming established, 
strengthened and settled in her primitive and 
evangelical doctrines and order." 

This liberal religious policy was also repeat- 
edly reaffirmed on behalf of the College during 

its early history. In the "Address 
President to the Public" published by the 
Hale on Trustees in 1830 it is emphatically 

Church and set forth, while in his Inaugural 
College Address in 1836 President Hale 

gives it eloquent expression. "From 
these remarks" (on religious instruction), he 
says, "I trust, I shall not be suspected of any 
purposes, which may be regarded as sectarian. 



THE CHURCH AND THE COLLEGE 1 

I value my own religious liberty too highly to 
design any infringement on that of others. Our 
institution is, as all institutions of the kind must 
be, under the care of a particular denomination. 
The same is true of the other colleges in this state, 
and throughout our country, and it is not a cir- 
cumstance to be objected to them, so long as they 
are managed in a catholic spirit. Each denomi- 
nation should do its part in the promotion of 
learning, and yet each cannot have its own col- 
lege within every state, without a ruinous 
division of effort." This policy has always been 
consistently maintained. The College has al- 
ways had among its most faithful alumni lay- 
men, and some clergymen also, of every promin- 
ent communion. Members of the present faculty 
whose recollection extends over thirty years 
recall no instance of complaint on ecclesiastical 
grounds. 

The tendency of the College, nevertheless, 
has been to draw closer its bonds of sympathy 
and affection with the Episcopal Church. The 
Board of Trustees has always been made up of a 
decisive majority of Churchmen with a minority 
of members of other denominations. The Presi- 
dent of the College has always been a clergyman 
of the Episcopal Church and generally, like the 
first president, a clergyman of previous educa- 
tional service. But certain changes in relation 
to the Church have taken place. Evidently in 



20 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the early years of the College it had no Sunday 
service and the daily morning prayers were in- 
formal. "We have introduced the 
Religious daily service in our Chapel," wrote 

Services President Hale in 1848, "and have 

separate Sunday services for our 
students." He rejoices also in "a very neat 
chapel, with its chancel and altar" and a "cross 
upon the gable." When this little wooden 
building gave place in 1862 to the present stone 
chapel, there occurred also the Swift endowment 
of the Chaplaincy, of which it was a condition 
that the incumbent should be a presbyter of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church. Furthermore, in 
1874 the Charter was modified by the provision 
which makes the Bishop of the Diocese a mem- 
ber of the Board of Trustees. 

By such appropriate means the College has 
recognized its ancient relation and obligation to 
the Church; it has also, in almost every year of 
its history, repaid in full measure that obligation 
by sending its graduates into the parochial and 
mission fields. During the first twenty years 
of the life of the institution, when the Episcopal 
Church in Western New York consisted largely 
of mission stations, the work of Geneva College 
as a part of "the Church's mission in the West" 
was notable, about thirty per cent of her 
graduates becoming clergymen, while Columbia 
College, in a stronghold of the diocese, had about 



THE CHURCH AND THE COLLEGE 21 

seven per cent during the same period. Of the 
total number of graduates twenty -four per cent 
or 264, have so far entered the min- 
istry, and of non-graduates 92, a Hobart's 
total of 356, of whom 187 are living. Work for the 
There have been fifteen bishops, Church 
of whom nine are living. The first 
Hobart man to be elected to the Episcopate 
was Neely '49. He was followed in that dignity 
by Welles '50, Brewer '63, Paret '49, Worthing- 
ton '60, Gilbert '70, A. R. Graves 9 66, Wells '67, 
F. R. Graves '78, Mann '79, Moore '99. Nor 
has this service of the College to the Church 
shown any recent falling off. The general 
catalogue of twenty-five years ago shows a pre- 
ponderance of lawyers over clergymen, which is 
reversed in the latest summary, and so far as 
elevations to the Episcopate are concerned 1920 
was certainly the banner year. Of the ten 
bishops consecrated in that year four were 
Hobart men: Ferris '88, Davenport '93, 
Moulton '97 and Fox '97. 

Could Hobart College have done more for 
the Church had it been organically bound in 
allegiance to her? A free service is the best 
service. No legal provision could have pro- 
duced a more consistent or more mutually 
helpful relation than that which has continued 
with little change and no abatement between 
the Church and the College for a hundred years. 



III. The English Course 

Like the relation of the College to the 
Church, the establishment of the English Course 
was directly connected with the foundation of 
the College. In the Announcement of Decem- 
ber 18, 1826, it is stated that "the plan of a purely 
English Course was never suggested until near 
the close of the subscriptions." Nevertheless 
the printed circular letter of March 1, 1824, 
nearly a year before the granting of the perman- 
ent charter, is devoted entirely to a description 
of this project, while the much longer pamphlet 
issued later in the same year is largely concerned 
with it. In both statements it is set forth as a 
special feature of the new institution which 
should commend it to the patrons of education 
in the West. It thus became an obligation of the 
College and at the first meeting of the Board it was, 
as has been noted above, at once established. 

In the circular of March 1, 1824, it is pro- 
posed to institute in Geneva College a course "in 
direct reference to the practical 
"For the business of life, by which the Agri- 

Practical culturist, the Merchant, and the 

Business Mechanic may receive a practical 

of Life" knowledge of what genius and ex- 

perience have discovered, without 
passing through a tedious Course of Classical 

(22) 



THE ENGLISH COUBSE 23 

Studies." No name is here given to the new 
curriculum, and it is still nameless in the 
pamphlet. 

"Our collegiate institutions," reads the latter 
publication in part, "have heretofore been 
established with the design of preparing young 
men for the learned professions. Their course 
of discipline and instruction has this object 
principally, and perhaps solely, in view. So 
obviously is this the fact, that a young man, who, 
after leaving College, turns his attention to 
merchandise or farming, is considered as having 
in a great measure lost four years of his time at 
the most important period of his life. Part, and 
a very considerable part of his studies has no 
important bearing upon his profession, and the 
habits he acquires at College are in general not 
favourable to his future pursuits. All the 
advantages he obtains of literary and scientific 
information might be gained under another 
system much more efficaciously, and at far less 
expense of time. ... In our Colleges, Chem- 
istry, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy 
are taught as liberal sciences, both for the sake 
of the discipline they give to the mind, and 
because a general knowledge of their principles 
is desirable in every walk of life, and is absolutely 
essential to him who would be esteemed a scholar. 
Geneva College, in addition to the mode of 



24 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

teaching these sciences to the general scholar, 
will also teach them practically, that is, with a 

direct application of their principles 
"Teaching to the purposes of life. . . . Our 
Sciences divines, our physicians, and lawyers, 

Practically" have Colleges erected to give them 

four years of preparatory instruc- 
tion for their separate professions; and to 
these institutions, our Legislature, and in 
several instances individuals, have exhibited a 
splendid munificence worthy of all praise. 
Is it not time that some particular atten- 
tion should be bestowed upon the education 
of farmers, mechanics, manufacturers, and 
merchants; and that both our Legislature and 
liberal minded individuals should be called upon 
to give to an institution having this object in 
view, some of that patronage which has been 
extended with such a noble and enlightened 
liberality to our different Colleges?" 

The language of this pamphlet might lead 
one to expect a school of technology and of 

agriculture too, but the length of 
The First the new course as proposed in the 
Non-Classical same document, two years, indi- 
Course cates that a more modest notion was 

in the writer's mind. In the ad- 
dress "To the Patrons of Geneva College" in 
December, 1826, however, the course is laid out 



THE ENGLISH COURSE 25 

on a three-year basis. There it is spoken of as 
"an extensive English Course of studies;" 
French is offered as a substitute for Latin and 
Greek; and the definite statement is made: 
"This idea of connecting an English with a 
Classical Course of instruction, was first adopted 
by us, and has been thought so valuable that it 
has been introduced by at least two of the Colleges 
in New-England." Thus did Geneva of the 
Genesee country, in her verdant but aspiring 
youth, give an educational hint to the effete East. 

This Course has been maintained from the 
opening of the College to the present day. 
Great difficulties beset its early administration. 
As a Hobart alumnus, President Smith of Trin- 
ity, remarked long afterwards, "the Founders 
of the College were fifty years ahead of their 
time, and it is just as fatal to an institution —as 
it is to a man —to be a half -century ahead of its 
time as to be a half -century behind it." In the 
first place, the new institution lacked scientific 
apparatus, desirable for the Classical and indis- 
pensable for the English Course. More than 
this, the students lacked proper preparation. 
Even if the College could institute adequate 
instruction in modern languages and science, it 
was many decades before it could secure prepara- 
tion in those subjects that would be in any way 
equivalent to that provided in Greek and 



26 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Latin. But the faith of the Trustees was 
pledged to the venture. It was promptly under- 
taken and unflinchingly maintained. 

The development of this pioneer enterprise 
has been an interesting one. It was at the 
beginning a course in Arts —that is, 
Development in Letters and Science combined — 
of the Course without Greek or Latin; it is such 
still. But in 1825, and long after- 
wards, when the study of Greek and Latin was 
pursued daily throughout the four years, the 
difference between the two courses was a very 
great one. In the process of time, however, a 
mighty development has taken place in both 
school and college instruction in modern lan- 
guages and sciences, while —and partly because 
of this development —there has occurred a heavy 
reduction in the requirement in Greek and 
Latin. As a result the old Classical course, now 
known as the Arts course, and the old English, 
now called the Scientific course, differ mainly in 
the requirement of two years' work in Latin or 
Greek in the former. Under the elective sys- 
tem, either may be made largely literary or pre- 
dominantly scientific, as the student's tastes and 
interests may dictate. Thus have the old-time 
"militiamen," as the Classical students used to 
call their English compatriots, been merged in 
the regular army. 



IV. Little Old Men of the Sea 

The pamphlet of 1824, in which the advan- 
tages of the new and broader curriculum are so 
eloquently set forth, contains an 
appeal of somewhat different char- "OneStu- 
acter to the prospective patrons of dent Free for 
the new College. The incorpora- Twenty 
tors do not ask a mere gift; they Years" 
offer a quid pro quo. Their agents 
who scoured the adjacent counties, carried in 
their hands certificates which stated in due form 
that the subscriber, having "paid $100.00 to the 
Funds of Geneva College, is himself, his heirs 
and assigns, entitled to the privilege of sending 
one student to the Geneva Academy, or to 
Geneva College, free of tuition fees, for twenty 
years, commencing from the date hereof, or at 
any time he may choose." A great many of 
these certificates were issued, representing much 
more than half of the money collected locally to 
complete the initial endowment of the College. 

Thus began an Iliad of woes. In the first 
place the Trustees were met at once by a 
demand on the part of the sub- 
scribers for the continuation of the The Academy 
Academy. At their second meeting Once More 
they listened to the report of a 
committee setting forth, with apparent justice, 

(27) 



28 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

that the mention made of the Academy was 
intended merely to secure a return to the sub- 
scribers in case the College were not established 
and only the Academy remained to meet these 
obligations. The subscription was "to the 
Funds of Geneva College;" it was only in order 
to raise the academy to a college that the sub- 
scription was asked and made. But the farmers 
of Western New York in those days had practical 
minds ; many of them came from New England. 
A twenty year certificate gained greatly in value 
if it could be used as soon as a son was able to 
read! And the certificate certainly said, "to the 
Geneva Academy, or to Geneva College." 

The Trustees agreed with their committee; 
they provided at this meeting for a subfreshman 
class, but went no farther. Nevertheless in 
December 1826 we learn that they have 
established the "Academic School," which 
opened January 10, 1827. This school, set up 
for pupils who would pay no tuition, was not 
likely to lighten their burdens; in 1834 they 
were able to terminate its existence. 

But not the existence of the Certificates! 

"The Certificates held by the subscribers," says 

i( - TT . TT . the 1826 Announcement, "are of 
To His Heirs ' 

, . . „ the same nature with Bank or 
and Assigns" 

Insurance Stock: they may be 
sold or otherwise transferred like other stock, 



LITTLE OLD MEN OF THE SEA 29 

and at the decease of an owner, go to his 
heirs and assigns in the same manner with 
other property." There was, in a word, no 
end to them! Year after year and decade 
after decade, back came these little old men 
of the sea, to perch upon the weary shoulders 
of the educational Sinbads of Western New 
York. The original trustees all passed to their 
account, but this account remained unsettled. 
Values changed; prices rose; "good boarding" 
could no longer be obtained in Geneva, as in 
1824, for "one dollar or one dollar and twenty- 
five cents per week:" the Certificates were still 
good. The Civil War came on: they survived 
it. The other day a gentleman of some eighty 
years displayed one, remarking that it was good 
for but one year more and he ought to enter at 
once. He was under the impression that our 
"little men" lived but a century. The writer 
believes he was mistaken; the doors of his 
putative Alma Mater are still open to him. 



V. A Chronicle of Trustees 

The roll of the Charter Trustees of Geneva 
College is a partial roster of the Worthies of the 

Genesee Country. At the head of 
James Rees the list stands James Rees, who had 

been Senior Trustee of the Academy 
and became the first Chairman of the new Board. 
He was eighteen years old when Yorktown fell. 
As a boy of fourteen he had entered the Phila- 
delphia banking firm of Thomas Willing and 
Robert Morris and had become private secretary 
to Morris. One of his duties was to fill out and 
cancel the enormous issue of bank-notes with 
which the Revolution was financed. He came 
into frequent contact with Washington and 
Hamilton, and saw many meetings upon which 
the fate of a great nation was to hang. Having 
seen the Genesee Country as Secretary to the 
Indian Commission of 1797, he removed here in 
the following year, and remained till his death in 
1851. He became a father of industry and 
philanthropy in this section, director of countless 
mercantile, charitable and religious organiza- 
tions. He held many public offices; served as 
Major and Assistant Quartermaster General in 
the War of 1812, having command of the defense 
of the Lake Ontario Shore from Oswego to the 
Genesee River. Genial, resourceful and inflexi- 
on 



A CHRONICLE OF TRUSTEES 31 

bly honest, he was able to render to Geneva Col- 
lege a unique service which terminated only with 
his death. 

Nearly half the original members of the 
Board had long terms of service. Its first 
Secretary, Hon. Bowen Whiting, 
District Attorney and Judge of the And His 

County and State Supreme Courts, Fellow- 

a member of the Legislature and a Workers 

man of wide prominence and dis- 
tinguished culture, devoted himself to the 
interests of the College till his death in 1850. 
With him may be mentioned James Carter, a 
Geneva physician, whose tenure of office closed 
with his life in 1846. Judge Whiting was of the 
Dutch Reformed Church, Dr. Carter a Presby- 
terian. Herman H. Bogert, born, like Rees, 
before the outbreak of the Revolution, a 
prominent lawyer and landholder of Geneva, 
resigned when past eighty in 1849. Hon. 
Abraham Dox, a Geneva merchant and director 
in many local industries, an officer in the War of 
1812 and member of the Legislature, served until 
1850. Of national as well as great local promin- 
ence was John Canfield Spencer, a brilliant 
lawyer, Secretary of State and of War, who was 
a most active friend of the College during its 
earliest years. 



S2 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Among the Charter Trustees, however, 
three in particular far exceeded the normal 
limits of such service. David Hudson, a lawyer 
and member of the Legislature, held his post 
till I860. Thomas Davies Burrall, a man of 
marked literary tastes, author and inventor, 
served till his death in 1872. Fin- 
A Trustee ally, one of the most energetic of 
for Sixty the original Board, William Steuben 

Years DeZeng, a merchant and manu- 

facturer of Geneva, where he was 
active in the town and in the Church, saw 
Geneva Academy and College through more than 
sixty years of its existence as an institution, 
relinquishing his office with his life in 1882. 

Of shorter service in the original Board were 
Rev. Orin Clark and Rev. Daniel McDonald, 
who may be called Bishop Hobart's clerical aids 
in the founding of the College; Samuel Colt, an 
officer of 1812, who with Bogert bought and laid 
out the entire village of Dresden; Judge 
Elnathan Noble of the Livingston County 
Court; Hon. Robert Selden Rose, Congressman 
for many years and founder of a very prominent 
Geneva and Hobart family; General Walter 
Grieve of the War of 1812; David Cook, a well 
known Geneva merchant; Rev. Henry Axtell, 
Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Geneva; 
Judge Philip Church of Angelica, first County 



A CHRONICLE OF TRUSTEES SS 

Judge of Allegheny; Hon. Henry Seymour, 
Mayor of Utica; Judge Elijah Miller of Auburn; 
Rev. Francis Higgins Cuming of Calvary 
Church, New York; Rev. Henry Anthon of St. 
Mark's, New York; Judge Jesse Clark of 
Waterloo; and Rev. Lucius Smith of Batavia, 
who had been active in securing the original 
endowment of the College. 

This completes the tale of the twenty-four 
Trustees named in the Charter. It is impossible 
even to mention all who by effective 
service have since deserved a place Earliest 
among Hobart's worthies. The Elections 
Board almost immediately added 
to its strength Hon. James Wadsworth of 
Geneseo, widely known as a pioneer of Western 
New York and head of a family that has since 
attained national distinction; in 1828 they 
elected Rev. John Churchill Rudd of the Gospel 
Messenger, who served for twenty years. In 
1833 Joseph Fellows, who had just become 
Agent of the Pulteney Estate, began a service 
which lasted forty years; in 1836 were elected 
Rev. Gustavus Abeel, Minister of the Dutch 
Reformed Church, and Thomas Folger, whose 
distinguished son, Charles J. Folger, Secretary 
of the Treasury and Chief Judge of the Court of 
Appeals, had graduated in that year; in 1839 
Rt. Rev. William Heathcote DeLancey, who, 



34 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

coming to reside in Geneva upon his election as 
first Bishop of Western New York, was imme- 
diately made a trustee; his lifelong and most 
fruitful devotion to the College has passed to his 
descendants, her faithful sons. 

In 1843 Rev. William Shelton of St. Paul's, 
Buffalo, began a forty years' service on the 

Board; in 1844 the first alumnus 
In the Forties was elected, Rev. Henry Gregory 
and Fifties '26; and in the same year Hon. 

Allen Ayrault of Geneseo, founder 
of the Ayrault Scholarships, who in 1860 was 
joined in the Board by his nephew, Rev. 
Walter Ayrault '40, Chaplain of the College; in 
1849 Rt. Rev. William H. A. Bissell, Rector of 
Trinity, Geneva, and Bishop of Vermont, who 
held his post for twenty years. In 1851 was 
elected David Saxton Hall, Secretary of the 
Board for almost a quarter-century; in 1853 
Horace White, who founded the professorship 
that bears his name, and was followed in the 
Board by his distinguished son, Andrew D. 
White, who had been a student in Geneva Col- 
lege under President Hale; in 1853 Col. Peter 
Augustus Porter of Niagara Falls, who served 
until his death in battle in 1864; in the next 
year Isaac Augustus Hawley, head of a family 
long and honorably associated with Hobart; in 
1855 Judge James Cosslett Smith of Canandai- 



A CHRONICLE OF TRUSTEES 35 

gua, who had been a student in the days of 
President Mason, and whose children, three of 
them graduates of Hobart, have won signal 
distinction in the fields of literature, law and 
education; in 1856 William B. Douglas of 
Geneva and Rochester, who built St. John's 
Chapel and in many ways earnestly devoted 
himself to the cause of the College during his 
trusteeship of half a century; and John Hewett 
Swift of New York, who endowed the Chap- 
laincy. 

In the sixties may be recorded Samuel 
Hopkins VerPlanck '47, long President of the 
Geneva National Bank; Rev. 
Morgan Dix, the distinguished Rec- In the Sixties 
tor of Trinity Church, New York, 
who served for thirty years; the Rt. Rev. 
Arthur Cleveland Coxe, second Bishop of 
Western New York, scholar and poet, himself 
most devoted to the College and the cause of 
much good will towards it in others; Alexander 
Lafayette Chew '45, an active trustee for more 
than forty years and head of a family singular 
in its attachment to the College; and Rt. Rev. 
Frederick D. Huntington, First Bishop of 
Central New York, who served for twenty years. 

The list grows very long, yet among trustees 
elected in Hobart's third quarter-century the 
names at least must be recalled of Hon. Stephen 



36 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

H. Hammond '54, and Peter Richards of Geneva; 
of Rev. Henry R. Lockwood '64, of Syracuse, 

and —well known in Hobart annals 
In the Third —Philip Norborne Nicholas '66, 
Quarter Secretary and Treasurer of the 

Century Board, for many years its senior 

member, and an authority on all 
things Hobartian; Judge James M. Smith of 
Buffalo, Chairman of the Board; and Hon. 
Levi P. Morton, Vice-President and Governor. 
Nor may we omit the names, appearing in the 
last decade of the century, of William Henry 
Walker of Buffalo, a most generous friend of the 
College; Rev. Charles Frederick Hoffman of 
New York, founder of the Intercollegiate Prizes 
by which Hobart students greatly benefited; 
Dr. Herbert M. Eddy 9 66, of Geneva; Hon. 
Walter A. Clark, Treasurer of the College; Rt. 
Rev. William D. Walker, third Bishop of Western 
New York; Samuel Douglas Cornell '60, of 
Buffalo, enthusiastic Marshal of many a Hobart 
Commencement, whose father had preceded him 
as Trustee; Frank Engs Blackwell '67, of New 
York, whose gifts as a speaker, rare as his devo- 
tion to his Alma Mater, were the delight of many 
Hobart audiences; and finally D. J. Van Auken, 
a Hobart man by attraction, who as Treasurer 
served the College, until his death, as he served 
himself or better. 



A CHRONICLE OF TRUSTEES 37 

All these have wrought for the old College, 
which now so inadequately commemorates their 
labors— all these and indeed many others still 
living or of recent election: to them shall some 
later chronicle devote a happier and more endur- 
ing tribute. 



VI, The First Half Century: 1822-1872 

In the development of the College from the 
beginnings which we have already traced, two 
epochs stand out beyond the rest: in the first 
half-century the administration of President 
Hale, with the shorter term of President Jackson 
following it, a period all told of about thirty 
years (1836-67); in the second half -century the 
administration of President Stewardson, with 
the shorter tenure of President Jones preceding 
it, a period in all of fifteen years (1897-1912). 
Dr. Hale's twenty-two years, the longest service 
in the history of the College, were devoted to the 
establishment of the institution, to making it a 
going concern, fit to meet the needs of the mid- 
nineteenth century; it was the similar and not 
less difficult task of Dr. Stewardson, working 
upon the considerable beginnings made by Dr. 
Jones, to re-establish and indeed reconstitute 
Hobart College as a twentieth century college of 
liberal arts, with a similar institution for women, 
William Smith College, affiliated with it. 

The group who had by the most determined 

exertions succeeded in incorporating the College 

had, as we have seen, great difficul- 

ties to face from the very start, and 
Pioneers ,i & * i i £ 

they sunered unhappy losses irom 

their own number. Bishop Hobart returned 

(38) 



THE FIBST HALF CENTURY 39 

to his labors in October 1825, but he was 
never able apparently to take an active part 
in college affairs, and in September 1830 he died, 
worn out with the combined labors of a city 
rector and an urban and missionary bishop. 
Dr. Clark of Trinity Church, Geneva, and Dr. 
McDonald, the guiding hand of the College in its 
earliest years, had gone before him. President 
Adams and his successor, President Richard 
Sharpe Mason, remained in office but a short 
time. Upon a group of laymen, mainly Gene- 
vans, depended such continuity of management 
as the College enjoyed until it came under the 
hands of Benjamin Hale. 

A more stout-hearted band of educational 
pioneers surely never essayed a well-nigh impos- 
sible task. The Church to which alone they 
could make appeal was little more than a west- 
ern mission; they had exhausted every form of 
persuasion in gathering their little endowment; 
they were under obligation to give free instruc- 
tion to an extent which only Providence could 
determine; they were engaged to conduct, 
besides the regular course, a new course requiring 
teachers and apparatus, and, as they soon 
found, they had an academy still on their hands. 

When our distinguished sister institution, 
Dalhousie of Halifax, celebrated its centennial 
a few years ago, it was noted that after it had 



40 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

erected a building in 1818, it proceeded no 
farther. Without professors or students, it lay 

down, not for an aeon, but for a 
Staying decade or two, while its building was 

Awake used for other purposes. The men 

who were responsible for Geneva 
College never lay down. Nor indeed was such a 
course open to them. Geneva College might 
have gone to sleep under their care; it would 
probably have waked up, if at all, in other hands. 
But these Trustees knew how to stay awake. 
Two things they had set before them, and no 
third: to conduct the College liberally, and 
to conduct it! 

These tenacious men, capably led by their 
Chairman, James Rees, and most unselfishly sup- 
ported, in the Faculty, by Horace 
Early Webster, carried the College 

Struggles through its earliest years. When 
President Hale, in 1848, reviews 
this period, he finds that the great difficulties 
of the College were due, as might be expected, 
to its inadequate financial establishment and 
the relative weakness of the Church with which 
it was connected. The more the Episcopal 
Church in Western New York needed a college, 
the less it was able to endow and equip one. 
The College was to help make the Church what, 
for the sake of the College, it ought already to 



THE FIRST HALF CENTURY 41 

have been— a strong self-supporting ecclesiasti- 
cal body. 

As to the financial situation, in its attempt 
to maintain instruction and provide apparatus, 
the College seems soon to have exhausted its 
original fund, while the certificates continued 
their depressive influence upon the student 
income. In the pamphlet of 1824 an appeal to 
the Legislature for aid to the College is appar- 
ently in mind, but no grant for running expenses 
was secured for some time. In 1834, however, 
the State put up the Medical College, afterward 
known as the Middle Building, and the "Medical 
Institution of Geneva College" commenced 
operations in the following year. While it lent 
some strength to the institution, it remained 
largely distinct from it, and did not ease its 
burdens. So the College struggled on until the 
election of President Hale in 1836. 

Benjamin Hale was a Massachusetts man, 
educated at Bowdoin. Like Adams and Mason, 
his predecessors, he was under forty 
when elected, and he had already "Little Ben- 
been professor of Chemistry in jamin, our 
Dartmouth for eight years. He Ruler" 
was a fluent and persuasive writer 
and speaker. Kindly and just, he was yet 
ready for controversy when he thought the truth 
required it. The Hobart men who as students 



24 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

knew him are very few now and they are very 
old, but they still pay him the tribute of affection 
and respect. To them "little Benjamin, our 
ruler," —to use the phrase recorded in the 
charming memorial address of Andrew D. White 
—is still, what he doubtless was, a lovable, yet a 
commanding figure. 

Under President Hale's control the College 
rose rapidly. The faculty was greatly strength- 
ened in 1836; in 1837-8 Trinity 
Good Hall was erected through the aid 

Progress of the Society for Promoting Relig- 

ion and Learning; and in 1838 an 
annual grant of $6000 was secured from the 
Legislature. There was a steady increase in 
strength and numbers until 1846, when the 
danger of the loss of the State appropriation 
made itself felt. With the adoption of the new 
Constitution the appropriation ceased. Aid 
was, however, again secured from the Society for 
Promoting Religion and Learning, on the condi- 
tion that $15,000 be raised in Western New 
York; which was done, and the Hobart Professor- 
ship established. In 1851 Trinity 
Geneva Church, New York, once more came 

Becomes to the aid of the institution which 

Hobart it had helped to found, granting 

$3000 per annum in perpetuity. In 
consequence of this gift Geneva College was 
renamed in honor of Bishop Hobart. 



THE FIRST HALF CENTURY 43 

Relieved of the uncertainties of legislative 
aid, the College again moved forward. In 1841, 
the new Medical College* having been erected, 
the entire group of buildings on the old site, 
Geneva, Middle and Trinity, were free for 
academic purposes; to which group the "neat 
chapel," referred to above, was added in 1848 
by the remodeling of an older wooden structure. 
It was a compact, well placed, and for a small 
college of that day not inadequate plant. 
Such the physical equipment of the College 
remained when Dr. Hale laid down his office in 
1858. 

The presidency of Dr. Abner Jackson, who 
had come from a professorship in Trinity College, 
maintained finely the traditions first 
definitely established for the College President 
by President Hale. His determined Jackson 
and unselfish labors carried the 
College safely through the great shock of the 
Civil War. He added, through the liberality of 
William B. Douglas, the present stone Chapel to 
the College plant, while the College funds were 
greatly increased, outstanding benefactions being 
those of Allen Ayrault of Geneseo, John Hewett 
Swift of New York and Horace White of 
Syracuse. 



*The next ten years was the period of greatest prosperity for 
the Medical College; it was moved to Syracuse in 1872. 



44 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Dr. Jackson, greatly regretted, returned to 
Trinity as president in 1867, and his successor, 
James Kent Stone, remained in office but one 
year. Dr. James Rankine, the beloved rector 
of St. Peter's Church, Geneva, then added for 
two years the duties of the presidency to those of 
his pastorate; in 1871 he was succeeded by Dr. 
Maunsell Van Rensselaer, president of DeVeaux 
College, who remained in office till 1876. Dur- 
ing this period, with the generous help of Bishop 
Coxe, some $65,000 was added to the resources 
of the College. At the close of Hobart's first 
half -century the total endowments of the College 
are reckoned at $266,000; its buildings at 
$53,000; its income from all sources at $13,700. 



VII. The Second Half Century: 
1872-1922 

Hobart had now a certain establishment as 
an academic institution of definite traditions 
and recognized grade. In giving an 
account of her stewardship through A New 
the next half -century certain facts Situation 
must be well considered. Geneva 
did not maintain the position of influence and 
importance which it had held when the College 
was founded. The development of the Erie 
Canal and still more that of railway traffic had 
altered completely the early situation. Syracuse 
on the one side, and still more Rochester on the 
other, rapidly outstripped the old gateway 
village of Western New York. With their 
growth these cities were naturally selected as 
college sites. Hobart thus had to reckon in her 
later career with two competitors, backed by 
denominations much more numerous than that 
with which she was connected, and with the 
powerful local support which large cities afford, 
while at the same time not far away rose the 
commanding academic figure of Cornell. The 
elder daughter of the days of stage-coach and 
canal looked soberly upon these strapping 
youngsters of the railway age. She had faced 
absolute extinction before; she faced relative 

(46) 



46 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

inconsequence now. She had to refit. But she 
had been a "great struggler" all her days; a 
struggler, and no straggler, she meant to remain. 

The expansion of the college curriculum in 
the eighties and nineties was as rapid as it was 
widespread. All educational land- 
AndNew marks were moved. While other 
Demands than scientific subjects shared in 
the movement, it was marked phy- 
sically by the great development of laboratory 
and, less noticeably perhaps, library facilities. 

Dr. William Stevens Perry, who had 
resigned the rectorship of Trinity Church, 
Geneva, to accept the presidency of Hobart in 
April 1876, transferred his energy and fine 
scholarship, later in the same year, to the service 
of the Diocese of Iowa; he was succeeded 
immediately by the Reverend Robert Graham 
Hinsdale, who remained in office till 1883. 
During his term, in 1879, Merritt Hall, the gift 
of Mrs. Julia Douglas Merritt, was put up, and 
some laboratory equipment was then installed; 
but only a portion of the building was devoted 
to this purpose, and the facilities thus provided, 
however excellent in quality, were quite inade- 
quate in extent. 

The outstanding achievement of the admin- 
istration of President Eliphalet Nott Potter was 
the provision of an adequate Library, for which 



THE SECOND HALF CENTURY 47 

he secured not only a fine building, but a greatly 
increased supply of books; yet it 
may be that the students of his day President 
will find other causes for greater Potter 
gratitude. Those who remember 
the charming hospitality of his home and 
that of our beloved Chaplain, Dr. Rob Roy 
Converse, those who knew the fine courtesy 
of Francis Philip Nash, who met the bright wel- 
come of Charles Rose, or the smile that was like 
a blessing of Hamilton Smith, learned what no 
books could teach them. They are gone, these 
"old familiar faces," but surely they think their 
lot happy, whether students or faculty, who 
were young in those good days. 

The Library Building was erected in 1885 
and extended in 1895; it had a stack capacity 
of 100,000 volumes and good read- 
ing-room and office space. There Demarest 
are now nearly 70,000 books and Library 
over 25,000 pamphlets in it, and 
there is still one large stack-room unused. 
Modern methods of teaching have made the 
library an intimate and essential feature in the 
work of all departments, and the College owes a 
lasting debt to Mrs. Agnes Demarest, Mrs. 
Merritt, Mrs. Vail and others, who built and 
endowed it, and to Professor Vail, under whose 
loving care it grew and flourished. 



48 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

If the new Library was equal to its task, 
proper laboratory facilities, and the instruction 
which could be given only with such equipment, 
were not yet supplied. Hobart closed her 
third quarter-century with this work still to be 
done. It had been delayed too long, and the 
College suffered for the delay. This critical 
educational period of the eighties and nineties, 
while it had shown progress in an absolute sense, 
had been, because of the almost violent expan- 
sion elsewhere, for Hobart an epoch of relative 
retrogression. 

In the administration of President Robert 
Ellis Jones the work of re-equipment was at last 

vigorously undertaken. Dr. Jones 
President had come to the College from 
Jones: New parochial life, but he had been an 
Progress earnest student of educational 

problems, and he was a keen builder. 

Throughout his term of office he gave himself 

whole-heartedly to his work for Hobart College. 

During this administration an unusual 

opportunity arose for a disinterested test of the 

standards of Hobart College, an 
Hobart Wins opportunity of which the faculty 
Many Prizes and students promptly availed 

themselves. The Association for 
Improving the Condition of Church Schools, 
Colleges and Seminaries, founded by the Rev. 



THE SECOND HALF CENTURY 49 

Charles F. Hoffman, D.D., of New York, offered 
a number of valuable prizes to be awarded to the 
students of the Church Colleges of the United 
States. The subjects of examination were 
English, Greek, Latin, Mathematics and Physics, 
and the papers were set and judged by professors 
in Columbia University. These examinations 
continued for more than ten years, and during 
that time (1899-1910) Hobart College took 
eighty-five first and second prizes, of a total 
value of $8700, entirely distancing all her 
competitors. While these examinations were 
going on, in 1906, Hobart College was placed by 
the Carnegie Foundation for the 
Advancement of Teaching upon the Carnegie 
original list of forty -six institutions Foundation 
entitled to share in the benefits of the 
Foundation. It is unnecessary to inform those 
who have read this account of the College that 
no alteration in its relation to the Church was 
involved in its acceptance of this benefit. The 
friends of the College could rejoice unqualifiedly 
at this public recognition of the standing of the 
institution, supporting as it did the direct evi- 
dence afforded by the intercollegiate contests of 
the soundness of its instruction. 

Returning now to the physical development 
of the College under President Jones —two new 
buildings were put up, while two others were 



50 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

entirely remodeled. The erection of Coxe Hall 
by the Diocese in memory of its brilliant and dis- 
tinguished bishop, Arthur Cleveland 
Coxe Hall Coxe, gave the College, besides an 
and Medbery auditorium, much needed offices and 
class-rooms, while it made possible 
the remodeling of Merritt Hall as a Chemical 
Laboratory, a use to which it was well adapted. 
At the same time the erection of Medbery Hall, 
a five-section dormitory, the gift of Miss 
Catherine M. Tuttle of Columbus, Ohio, brought 
about the immediate alteration and refitting of 
Trinity Hall as a Physics and Mathematics 
building. As an incident of this development, 
which occurred in 1900-01, the College for the 
first time left Main Street behind, the two new 
buildings forming sides of an open quadrangle 
of which the older structures on Main Street 
formed also a side. With the addition of these 
facilities coincided a corresponding increase in 
personnel. 

Such considerable beginnings had been made 
when Dr. Langdon C. Stewardson accepted the 

presidency in 1903. Dr. Steward- 
President son had been Professor of Philoso- 
Stewardson phy and Chaplain at Lehigh, where 

he was beloved alike by students 
and by faculty. To his high educational fitness 
for the post, he added a sincere affection for 



THE SECOND HALF CENTURY 51 

youth and a deep sympathy for the problems of 
youth. To him the student was never merely 
the student; he was first of all a young man 
whom he hoped to serve. If he was not so great 
a believer in "the wall" as his predecessor, he 
nevertheless recognized the necessity of a sub- 
stantial physical foundation for modern collegi- 
ate work, and meant to secure it. 

The earliest years of Dr. Stewardson's term 
of service were devoted to the development of 
administrative facilities and to the organization 
and consolidation of the Alumni of the College, 
to whom he again and again presented the cause 
of the College and its difficulties with rare elo- 
quence and force. President Stewardson's 
strength with the alumni was of great impor- 
tance to the College when it came to the greatest 
innovation of its career. The account of this new 
departure can best be given substantially in the 
President's words, contained in a special Address 
to the Alumni, published in December 1906. 

"Through the generosity of Mr. William 
Smith of Geneva the sum of approximately 
$475,000 was on December 13, 1906, 
conveyed to the Trustees of the William 
College for the purpose of founding Smith 
William Smith College for women. College 
This school is to be co-ordinated 
with the men's department of Hobart College 



52 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

and is to be under the general management and 
supervision of its Board of Trustees. To guar- 
antee the fulfilment of Mr. Smith's wishes, how- 
ever, he is at the outset to be represented on the 
Board by three trustees, one of whom is to be a 
woman, and ultimately or as soon as resignations 
occur, by two additional trustees, one of whom is 
also to be a woman." 

"A site has already been purchased by Mr. 
Smith at a cost of $27,500. It consists of a 
beautiful estate of some twenty -four acres in 
extent, which was formerly owned by Mr. J. D. 
Patterson. The older alumni will remember it 
as the home of Mr. William B. Douglas. It is 
situated on rising ground immediately adjoining 
the Hobart Campus, being bounded on the east 
by Pulteney Street and on the south by St. Clair 
Street. A spacious brick mansion upon the 
summit of the hill is to be altered or enlarged in 
order to provide a suitable home for the young 
women, while in the neighborhood 
New Equip- of Pulteney Street and near the 
ment — More Hobart College grounds is to be 
Courses built a large hall which is to be 

known as the William Smith Hall 
of Science. This Hall is to be equipped with 
Biological and Psychological laboratories and is 
also to contain the necessary lecture rooms and 
offices. In addition to the laboratories provided 



THE SECOND HALF CENTURY 53 

by Mr. Smith, he is also to furnish a professor 
of Biology, an assistant professor of Psychology, 
instructors in Mathematics, Physics, English and 
Modern Languages, and, it is hoped, a professor 
of Political Economy and Social Science." 

"The educational plan adopted by the Trus- 
tees is that of the co-ordinate instruction of men 
and women and is to be clearly 
distinguished from what is com- Co-ordinate 
monly called co-education. Under not Co- 
this plan there is but one faculty, educational 
and the same educational advan- 
tages and degrees are offered to women as to 
men, but the women and the men are not, 
except perhaps in certain very small classes 
doing advanced work, to be brought together in 
the same lecture rooms. In accordance with 
this plan the present Chemical and Physical 
Laboratories are to be open, but at different 
hours, to the women of William Smith, and in 
like manner and under the same conditions the 
laboratories and adjoining class-rooms of Wil- 
liam Smith are open to Hobart College men. 
The Library of Hobart College is to continue as 
always free to men and women alike and at the 
same hours." 

It was an occasion of pride for the College 
and its friends that this gift, by far the largest 
in its history, came from a fellow-citizen, a 



54 HOB ART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Genevan who had spent his working life where 
Hobart was best known. William Smith was 
older than the College and had been 
William in business in Geneva since its early 

Smith, days. Satisfied, for himself, with 

1818-1912 less than most men, though de- 
termined to accomplish more than 
most, he had with a singular great patience made 
his plans to devote the fruits of a life-time of 
honorable toil to the education of women. 
Doubtless he had a confidence in his own life and 
strength which few mortals enjoy; yet it was 
justified in his case. At the age of eighty-eight 
he signed his deed of gift; he was ninety years 
old when William Smith College opened its doors, 
and he lived to see four classes enter its halls. 
None will refuse tribute to so impressive a record 
of aspiration and fulfilment; it is itself a 
monument, the worth of which the endurance 
and prosperity of William Smith College can 
hardly enhance. 

Mr. Smith's gift brought back into the 
possession of the Trustees of Hobart College the 
old Ridge tract, which had been sold nearly 
fifty years before and greatly improved and 
beautified in the meantime. With the addition 
of Boswell Field, the gift of a most devoted 
alumnus, Charles P. Boswell '60, the entire 
campus now stretched in a long rectangle for half 



THE SECOND HALF CENTURY 55 

a mile from the shore of Seneca Lake, the 
Hobart Campus on the east side of 
Pulteney Street, and the William Smith 
Smith Campus and Boswell Field Observatory 
on the west side. Smith Observa- 
tory with its site on Castle Heights also passed 
to the College. It had won fame through the 
work of Professor Brooks of Hobart, who had dis- 
covered more comets than any other living man. 

Smith Hall and Blackwell House— as the 
remodeled dwelling was called in honor of Eliza- 
beth Blackwell, first woman physi- 
cian, who had taken her degree Women's 
from Geneva Medical College in College Grows 
1849 —were ready in September Rapidly 
1908, and the new co-ordinate col- 
lege was duly opened with a freshman class of 
eighteen students. In 1909 a temporary gym- 
nasium was provided on the Ridge; in 1910, on 
receipt of a further gift of $25,000 from Mr. 
Smith, Miller House —named in honor of Mrs. 
Elizabeth Smith Miller of Geneva —was erected 
and opened as a second dormitory. In 1912 a 
Domestic Science Course was instituted. Af- 
ter the fourth class entered in 1911 there were 
sixty students in William Smith; in 1912 the 
first class graduated twenty students, being 
somewhat larger than at entrance. By 1914 
there were one hundred women enrolled. 



56 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

It was the intent of the President and 
Trustees to set up the new college without dis- 
turbing the habits and traditions of the old, yet 
with the hope of making of the two independent 
units a stronger institution than either could be 
of itself. It was felt that the Hobart men who 
were in college when this great change took place 
had some grounds for complaint; every effort 
was made, however, to avoid wounding their 
susceptibilities. The Hobart Campus was 
strictly reserved for them; as a college they 
might ignore the new institution. If as individ- 
uals they did not always succeeed in doing so, as 
events now and then have indicated, President 
Stewardson and the Trustees can not fairly be 
held responsible. 

Doubtless the situation was alleviated by 
the very solid advantages which Hobart 
immediately realized. The faculty 
Hobart' s was considerably enlarged; fine 

Gains biological and psychological labora- 

tories were opened to Hobart men, 
who promptly filled them. At the same time 
President Stewardson was able to fulfil one of the 
dearest wishes of his heart and theirs in the open- 
ing in 1908 of Williams Hall, a beautiful and well 
equipped gymnasium. The first gift for this 
purpose, that of Mrs. Charles D. Vail, was used 
for a swimming pool; Mr. Hiram W. Sibley 



THE SECOND HALF CENTURY 57 

provided the equipment; while the building itself 
was the gift of Mrs. T. J. Emery of Cincinnati. 
President Stewardson's Report to the Trus- 
tees in January 1908 records gifts of $575,000 
during his four or five years' tenure 
of office, and quotes the Treasurer's 
report showing that the value of 
the College property had risen in 
that time from $675,000 to $1,200,000. It had 
been indeed a period of rapid development —of 
such broadening of foundations and extension 
of activities as the old College had long awaited 
and rejoiced to see. The old-fashioned college 
of the seventies, with the considerable additions 
made under President Jones, had now been 
rounded out into something like the desired 
whole— a twentieth century College of Liberal 
Arts. 

The erection of a new educational unit 
beside the old added greatly to the President's 
cares, but the work for William Smith went for- 
ward with gratifying results. In the great 
changes he had brought about Dr. Stewardson 
had had the loyal and active support of his whole 
faculty; he continued to enjoy it in fullest 
measure. His official burdens they might alle- 
viate, but not his private cares. When the 
graduation of the "Charter" Class of 1912 set 
the first mile-stone in the history of the new 



58 HOBART: THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

college, the President was able only to send from 
abroad his felicitations to his first Alumnae. 
His resignation was received not 
President long afterwards and his administra- 
Stewardson tion closed in September 1912, less 
Resigns than ten years from its inception. 

He had achieved much, and changed 
not a little, in the old college, but through all 
changes and chances he had never lost sight of 
his first care —the students of Hobart College. 
Therefore his own generation of Hobart men, and 
not a few of earlier days to whom he had become 
well known, remember him, and will long remem- 
ber him, with affectionate regard. 

The recent history of Hobart College is 
necessarily to a great extent the story of her 
experience during the Great War. Some im- 
provements in living conditions in the Hobart 
dormitories were made during the adminis- 
tration of President Lyman Pierson Powell, but 
larger plans were necessarily held in abeyance. 

From the outbreak of the conflict in 1914 
men began leaving to take their part in it. 

When the United States declared 
Hobart Does war, the College, already reduced, 
Her Bit was all but denuded. During the 

critical period of 1917-19 Hobart 
was fortunate in the wise and strong guidance 
of Dean Durfee, who as Acting President was 



THE SECOND HALF CENTURY 59 

responsible for both colleges. Hobart put into 
the service of the country 395, or nearly one 
third, of her graduates and undergraduates. 
They received ten decorations and many cita- 
tions. Eleven fell in battle or died of disease. 
In the autumn of 1918 a Student's Army 
Training Corps was established and Hobart 
became a military post. By dint of 
united and enthusiastic erf ort under S. A. T. C. 
Dean Durfee's direction, the work 
of the Post was carried on in a manner which 
received the commendation of both civil and 
military authorities. Of the thirty-one institu- 
tions in New York and New Jersey Hobart was 
one of seven to be reported by the District 
Director, Professor W. E. Hocking of Harvard, 
as "doing the War Issues work in an excellent 
manner, showing a certain initiative and imagi- 
nation, over and above the plans of the Com- 
mittee." 

The sudden return to regular work in 
January 1919 was smoothly accomplished, and 
in the autumn of that year both colleges opened 
with the largest enrollment in their history. By 
this time, however, the new Executive of the 
College, President Murray Bartlett, returning 
from his service in France, had already devoted 
his energies to her peaceful but urgent cause. 



